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a·sym·met·ri·cal
[ˌāsəˈmetrək(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE
This word and definition will become very important here as the attacks begin.
- having parts which fail to correspond to one another in shape, size, or arrangement; lacking symmetry.
- having parts or aspects that are not equal or equivalent; unequal in some respect.
Why whites are blind to their racism
Wed Jul 2nd 2008 by abagond
Most white Americans are blind to their racism. At least seven out of ten. And even those whites who do see it, most think it is not all that serious. Most whites live in nearly all-white neighbourhoods and see nothing racist in that. And when blacks do complain of racism, most whites do not believe it.
So why are whites so blind to their own racism? There is a short answer and a long answer.
The short answer is that they are not directly affected by it. They are never at the receiving end. Because they are white.
So when blacks talk about racism whites either have a hard time understanding it – because it is not something they have ever experienced – or they think blacks are making a big deal out of nothing: they are being too sensitive, they are living in the past and all that.
That is the short answer. The long answer is this:
America was founded on two crimes: taking the land of the red man and bringing the black man in chains to work it. To feel right and good about that whites had to be racist. They had to think of themselves as far better and more human than others.
So not only was the country built on racism, so were the hearts and minds of white people.
Back then racism was open, naked, violent and respectable. So respectable, in fact, that any white person who was was not racist, who related to blacks as equals, was called names or worse!
But then all that changed.
Starting in the 1970s racism became a sin among white Americans. It became kind of like how sex used to be: something you did not talk about openly and when you did you felt uncomfortable about it. It even had dirty words to go with it, especially the n-word. “Racist” became one of the worst things you could call a white person.
Because racism was no longer respectable it weakened considerably. But it was still there, it was still a part of how whites saw themselves and the world – but now they could not admit to it!
So then it got strange:
On the one hand, to hold on to their unfair position and advantages in society, to their white privilege, and feel right and good about it, whites had to believe racist lies. Like that blacks lacked brains or a willingness to work hard.
And yet, on the other hand, they knew that racism was wrong.
So in the 1970s whites reached a fork in the road: either give up racism and its advantages, in pride, position and wealth, or hang onto racism by becoming blind to it.
As it turned out, they gave up some of their advantages, like places at universities, but by and large they became blind. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too.
Why whites are blind to their racism
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well.” ~ Booker T. Washington
And when Washington made that comment, America was practicing apartheid.
So what happened to people thinking like Washington?
Ta-Nehisi Coates points this out in his 2009 article, “The Tragedy And Betrayal Of Booker T. Washington.”
Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” is remembered as a betrayal and a sell-out because it accepted segregation, and argued against black political agitation. But in fact, at the time, the response from black America to the “Compromise” was at worst mixed, and at best quite positive. No less than W.E.B. Du Bois called the speech, “the basis for a real settlement between whites and black in the South.”
It makes sense, when you think about it. Washington basically said to the white South in 1895,“You win. We don’t want the right to vote. We just want to till our farms, better ourselves, and be left alone. Leave us in peace, and you’ll hear no more of this voting or integration business.” You have to remember the state of mind of black people, at that time. Reconstruction had been rolled back. The South was wracked by race riots. Three years after Washington’s speech, the only coup in American history was orchestrated in Wilmington, North Carolina by racist thugs. Washington was basically conceding what he'd already lost. In return he hoped to simply secure the right of good Christian blacks to work the land in peace.
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The dominant logic of the post-Reconstruction era held that the real problem wasn't white racists, but carpetbaggers and meddlers from up North who’d elevated illiterate blacks above their station. The white Southerner, presumably, had no existential objection to blacks, they just didn’t want to live next door to them or have an illiterate and morally degenerate population electing their politicians. To this Washington, and much of black America, said Fine. Cease fire. You let us be, we’ll let you be.
In retrospect, this was a grievous error. In point of fact, whites actually did have an existential objection to black people. Their beef wasn’t that illiterates and moral degenerates might get too much power. Quite the opposite. Their beef was that blacks would prove to not be illiterates and moral degenerates, and thus fully able to compete with them. To see this point illustrated, one need only look at the history of race riots in the South. When white mobs set upon black communities they didn’t simply burn down the “morally degenerate” portions—they attacked the South’s burgeoning black middle and working class and its institutions. They went for the churches, the schools and the businesses. It’s one thing to be opposed to black amorality. It’s quite another to be opposed to black progress. The lesson blacks took post-Atlanta Compromise was that whites had used the former to cover for the latter.
The Tragedy And Betrayal Of Booker T. Washington - The Atlantic
Washington learned the hard way just how wrong he was.